


Yes YES The Tiger is out

by Mus_musculus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Demisexuality, F/M, Masturbation, Predator/Prey, Shapeshifting, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mus_musculus/pseuds/Mus_musculus
Summary: In which the hardest part of the weird stuff you're both definitely kinda maybe into is saying it out loud with your words.





	Yes YES The Tiger is out

**Author's Note:**

> Bestiality *adjacent* if that's your squick, but honestly its kind of fluffy and barely earns the mature rating.

Vax is already waiting for her, when she goes to meet him that evening at the edge of the forest. He’s leaning against a young oak tree in a way that is clearly meant to look cool and casual, but Keyleth recognizes the way his shoulders are hunched up; knows the tight line of his mouth. Her heart drops into her stomach as it occurs to her that she hadn’t told Vax why exactly she wanted to talk to him in private, when she mentioned it in passing, earlier. This thing they had was still new; a little weird and a lot fragile, and he probably thought...she’s  _ such _ an asshole. She’s made him afraid- really afraid, not afraid in the way that she’s beginning to think might be a bit fun. Keyleth runs over to his tree and grabs him by both the arms.

“Hey”, she said, “hey, no, we’re good, we’re alright.”

“Yeah?” Vax asks, all big, serious eyes. “Are we?”

“Yes! We are! Really, I just...had an idea I didn’t want to forget. It wasn’t meant to be, like, a whole  _ thing _ .”

“You had an idea?” He was still stressed out, or he’d be using his own words, not just repeating hers with a question mark attached. But at least she could feel his arm muscles starting to relax under her hands. 

“Uh...yes.” It sounded like an impossibly bad idea _ now _ , standing by the woods together like this, with the shadows lengthening all around them, and Vax looking at her like she held his whole world in her hands. It had just been for fun. She’d only thought he would like it, but everything with Vax always got so much bigger than she meant it to, and so quickly.

“Nevermind”, she says now, trying to project authoritative calm. “We can talk about it later. The point it that I didn’t mean to freak you out. Right now let’s just-” and what she means to do here is pull him into a hug, but the action gets all mixed up with her  _ other  _ train of thought, and what actually happens is that she goes Minxie without meaning to. It’s so easy these days, so effortless- like pulling a coat out of her wardrobe and putting it on, all in the same motion. The saber-toothed tiger’s form swells up and envelops her nearly instantaneously, and the colors of the world shift as she looks at them with feline eyes. Vax looks different like this (smells different too), but she still knows him, even if the tiger brain doesn’t.

She’s still right next to him after her failed hug attempt, and Vax has no idea she ever meant to do anything different, so she butts her head up against Vax’s hip, then rubs her scent glands over him with affectionate satisfaction. She can feel his fingers settle into her fur, one hand landing on top of her head to scritch her behind the ear. He doesn’t question the transformation. It’s so much easier for her like this, and Vax has always understood that. So much easier to love and be loved when there are no words involved, and therefore no way to make any mistakes. He squats down in front of her and ruffles her neck fluff, smiling and saying “Hi” to Minxie without expecting a response, then nuzzling his face against hers in mimickry of her earlier gesture. Saying hi in cat language. She chuffs at him in response.

When she finally works up the courage to return to her own body, it’s just beginning to get dark. Vax is sitting cross legged against the base of the tree, and they’ve clearly been there for a while; time gets weird sometimes when you’re a tiger. He might be uncomfortable, sitting there, but she has her head in his lap, which is  _ very _ comfortable, and he hasn’t said anything yet about his legs getting stiff, so she just lets him hold her. It feels much easier to talk now, in the warm near-dark of the forest, with his hands running gently through her hair.

“It was a stupid idea”, she says. 

“I’m listening”, he says, as he idly plays with a braid. 

“More of an observation, really.”

“Kiki…”

Keyleth buries her face into the crook of his knee with embarrassment.

“I know you like it when I shapechange” she says, into his leg, and her voice squeaks oddly when she hits the word ‘like’. Vax’s hands stop moving.

“I’m not mad!” she hastens to add, rolling halfway over in his lap to look up at him. “I like that you like it”.  _ (And that is just the lamest possible way to say that. Idiot.) _

Vax seems utterly caught off guard. He’s looking at her with a totally unreadable expression- not because its blank, but because its too many emotions all at once. Startlement, embarrassment, shame, fondness, interest, hesitance, uncertainty?

“Of course I do” is what he says, when he says anything. “It’s incredible. You’re incredible.” She smiles up at him, upside down, and he smiles back. 

“Thanks”, Keyleth says, suddenly feeling bold, “but you  _ like _ like it. The bigger and scarier I am, the better. I wasn’t quite sure until recently, but I figured it out.”

“Is that...a problem?” Vax asks, his voice soft. “I won’t say anything about it again, if it bothers you.”

“It doesn’t. Bother me.” He still looks skeptical. “It doesn’t! That was what I- when I said we should take a walk, I was going to suggest…” Another wave of embarrassment rolls over her. Like the sea, it comes in and goes out, and then comes back in. They are trapped here together on the beach of romantic ineptitude.

“Minxie thinks you’re prey” she says, the words rushing out of her instead of whatever in the world she  _ meant _ to say. “Vox Machina, I mean. *I* don’t forget, obviously, it’s still me in there, or she wouldn’t be so cuddly. But I have to remind her, every time, who you guys are and why she shouldn’t try to eat anyone. Sometimes, when you move before I expect you to, and I see it just out of the corner of her eye? She wants to chase you.”

Vax has stopped breathing. 

“So no, it doesn’t bother me! And if you ever wanted to- I mean, just for fun, I wouldn’t ever let her  _ really _ hurt you-”

“Yes”, he says. There is no uncertainty in his voice, just eagerness, and Keyleth’s heart leaps. She can feel Minxie, the real Minxie, sit up and pay attention. She’s so _ close _ , only just under Keyleth’s skin. 

“She wants to pin you down-”

_ “Yes.” _

“So...it  _ was _ a good idea?” 

“The best, Kiki”, Vax says fervently. “The best idea.”

“Ok”, Keyleth says, “alright”, and she lets her humanoid form go again, this time on purpose. Suddenly, Vax has a tiger’s head in his lap. A minute ago this had felt safe- comfortable, affectionate- but with only a few words, the energy between the two of them has completely changed. She is very aware, now, of the fact that Vax is slender, and although Minxie isn’t massive, she still outweighs him nearly five times over. She’d be taller than him too, if she stood up on her hind legs. Keyleth doesn’t bother, choosing instead to get up to all fours slowly, letting him scramble to his feet. He’s still wide-eyed, watching her, so she yawns and stretches her front legs, which has the advantage of showing off the length of her canine teeth and the sharpness of her claws. She can hear his heart rate pick up. 

Keyleth settles herself back on Minxie’s haunches. In this position, her head is nearly level with his chest. She tips her head just slightly back to meet his eyes, and they consider each other. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to speak, to say something sensible like “yeah, this sounds fun, how about next week?” or “no teeth, please”; but instead he simply turns and darts off into the forest, because he’s an  _ asshole  _ and not above unfair head starts.

Minxie’s longing to chase after him flares up bright, like it always does. The sight of fleeing prey demands action, so Keyleth give her free rein. Vax is faster than Minxie over longer distances (she’s an ambush predator, favoring bursts of speed over sustained pursuit) so she has to catch him fast. It would be totally embarrassing if he had to  _ let _ her catch him. Keyleth really wants this to be good. All she has to do is keep up with him, and keep enough of a grip on herself so as not to accidentally hurt him. She can do that. So she loosens her control, and lets Minxie tear after him. 

Vax had slipped through the open spaces at the edge of the forest and darted immediately towards the denser woods. Presumably he thinks she won’t be able to follow him there, given her larger size, but it also means that he won’t be able to spread his wings, and Minxie has no such issue getting airborne. Her back claws dig into the earth, giving her the traction to launch herself forward. It’s not  _ anything _ like running as a person. She is all sleek, rippling movement; bouncing between log and boulder as if the earth has no hold on her. All of her focus has narrowed down to the work of catching the creature who is fleeing from her, a shadow in the underbrush.

It’s getting dark now, but neither of them are hampered by the lack of light. The evening is quiet, despite how fast they’re moving. Vax can be nearly silent when he wishes to be, and even the largest feline is graceful. Color vanishes from the world as the sun finally goes down. Keyleth can feel the chill begin to set into her skin and fur, but her blood is warm from the exertion. Her pads are beginning to sweat. She’s nearly lost sight of him half a dozen times now, as he zigs and zags trying to shake her, but Minixie is so attuned to movement that she can follow him anyway, just from the rustle of the branches swaying behind him, where he’s passed.

She realizes that he’s figured that out when she loses his trail. Scent trails aren’t easy to follow, but she runs right over where his stops, and has to double back to figure out what’s happened. He’s hiding from her. Curled up in some dark hollow nearby, his breath coming fast and shallow as he tries to stay motionless and silent. She turns and pads softly back the way they had come, scanning the trees.  _ There- _ standing upright on a branch maybe fifteen feet above her head, he’s pressed himself against the bark and nearly disappeared into the dark shadow of the trunk. Waiting for her to lose him. Ha, as  _ if _ .

She paces back and forth in the middle of the clearing, trying to look confused, and then she casually sidles up to the tree Vax has ensconced himself in, rears back to her full standing height, and scratches long, deep furrows into the trunk. Then she sits down on her haunches, looks up, and meets his eyes. It was a mistake, letting her tree him, and she wants him to know it. 

He grins back down at her, and then flips around and scrambles further up the trunk, out of her sight. What is he thinking? He can’t possibly get high enough to fly away; the trunk will narrow too small for climbing long before the tree cover breaks. That’s what Keyleth is thinking, anyway; Minxie is just annoyed. She paces back and forth at the base of the tree, snarling her frustration.

It quickly becomes clear that Vax isn’t thinking anything in particular, but really just doesn’t actually know where to go from here, and that’s more awkward than it is fun, so Keyleth stalks off a good distance and settles herself down in the underbrush, to wait. He’ll come down soon enough, when he gets bored of sitting in a tree. How long has it been? She doesn’t know. Time gets weird when you’re a tiger. Sitting and waiting for your prey, unseen in the foliage, time means nothing.

Eventually, he does come down from his tree. Everything’s different now. Slow, and quiet. He’s trying to move so carefully she won’t notice him, which is futile, since she’s been here the whole time, but it lights all of her nerves on fire to know that he can’t figure out exactly where she is. This is her element now, her advantage. She crawls forward a little, still on her belly in the dirt. She is so close to him, and he doesn’t have any idea. 

The moment their eyes meet, he jumps backward in shock and trips on a root, and she  _ knows _ that she has him. She sheathes her claws as he falls backwards, and when she leaps to land on top of him she does it very, very carefully. But it doesn’t matter what she does; the humanoid body can’t  _ really  _ tell the difference, physiologically, between being pounced on gently by one’s girlfriend in a tiger suit and actually being seconds away from death. She hears Vax cry out in what sounds like real fear, which is gut wrenching despite being the literal entire point of this exercise. He ends up flat on his back, his eyes clamped shut and his whole body trembling as she sets her teeth on his neck and very deliberately does not bite down.

It’s exactly as good as she thought it would be. Minxie’s pleasure at her successful catch is tangible, a warm rush of satisfaction. There’s a little bit of wistfulness about not getting to eat after a hunt, but Keyleth puts that down firmly, and Minxie lets it go, only grumbling a little. Meanwhile, she still has Vax pinned, and he looks  _ wrecked _ ; flushed and breathing in shuddery gasps. She does the tiniest little shake of her head, just so that he can feel where she has him by the throat, and he moans like- well. 

She hasn’t actually heard him moan like that before, is the thing. They haven’t really gotten there yet. They will eventually! Keyleth is sure that they will  _ eventually. _ Probably. Maybe?

She’s not absolutely 100% sure that she wants to get there, is the thing. It’s all very theoretical still, kind of interesting and kind of gross. But all of those anxieties feel absolutely miles away from this moment here, now, with Vax trapped underneath her making such interesting sounds. It’s not really her body, is it? So it can’t really be _sex_, when her red-faced boyfriend asks “Kiki, can I-” in the most desperate tone of voice she’s ever heard, and she lets him go a little and nods and then he shoves his hand down his pants. Not really. Can it? 

It’s nice, whatever it is. It’s nice to be involved without having to “be involved”. Her job right now is to be big and scary, which is pretty easy, and also pretty fun. Maybe it shouldn’t feel like a relief that she doesn’t have to touch her boyfriend right now, but it does. Maybe it should make her feel like a terrible person, but it just feels like...a gift? She doesn’t feel obligated to touch him (she couldn’t if she wanted to, not with these paws) but she still gets to be here, and she’ll get to tease him about it later, just a little, just in private, just to see him blush. It’s lovely.  _ He’s _ lovely, when she watches him come for the first time...presumably to a fantasy of her maiming or killing or possibly eating him, which should definitely freak her out. It’s hard to remember all of the things she should be feeling about this experience, not when she’s actually having it. Not when she’s collapsing back into her body and the two of them lay there exhausted in each other’s arms on the forest floor. It’s just nice.

It does get a  _ bit  _ weird, later, but in a funny way, not an bad way. They sneak into the mansion giggling and shh-ing each other, giddy like they’re drunk, with their hair all fucked up from rolling around in the woods. And they  _ try _ to go to sleep in their regular rooms, honestly they do. But not half an hour later Vax comes and knocks on her door, and he’s looking sheepish in that way that makes her like him against her better judgement, and he leans against the doorframe and says “Next time we need some kind of magic that can hide us, because there are a lot of well-meaning adventurer types out there, and think how it would look, if this giant tiger is attacking this hapless civilian...” and Keyleth’s eyes go huge. 

“Oh  _ no _ ”, she says, picturing it. “You’d have to explain that they’d just killed your  girlfriend -”

  
“Imagine me trying to explain your death to _ Pike _ ”, he says, wryly, and Keyleth cracks up, and lets him in. 


End file.
